16 PLANS, PLANS, PLANS! W ELL, the Regional Plan fOf New York and its Environs has at last been submitted, after seven years of work by the Com- mittee on the Regional Plan, and I may say that I am Just about ready to drop. Seven years is a long time, even just waiting around. The area covered by the plan is that within a radius of fifty miles of the City Hall, but all that I shall have need for is about three and a half miles in one direction (uptown). I very seldom go above Eighty-fifth Street now that those German places on Eighty-sixth Street have got so crowded. Perhaps there is something in the plan for re- ducing the congestion in those Eighty- sIxth Street places. I haven't really read it all through. It is said that this area is fOUf and a half times as large as the State of Rhode Island ("Little Rudy") but that doesn't help me much as I don't know how large Rhode Island is. I do know that you can get awfully good clam chowder in Providence, Rhode Island. None of this hot water, tomato, and green-pepper stuff known as "Man- hattan" clam chowder, but made with milk and onions and potatoes. But I suppose that if N ew York were to be ten times as large as Rhode Island they would still make their clam chowder with hot water, tomatoes, and green peppers. (I guess that living so long has made me cynical.) The plan as submitted looks ahead to a New York of 1965. That lets me out right at the start. My interest in the thing can be merely academic, as by 1965 I hope to be stuffed and stand- ing upright in the Natural History Mu- seum next to Mrs. Murphy, the hippo- potamus who recently left the Zoo so deso- late. Incidentally, much as I hate writ- ing for a living, I would rather be do- ing this than be en- gaged in stuffing Mrs. Murphy. By 1965 the Com- mittee on the Region- al Plan figures that there will be twenty million people in this New York area. For this reason, if for no other, I hope that I shall not be here. I couldn't stand twen ty million people, and I am sure that twenty mil1ion people couldn't stand me, not the way I should be in 1965. It would just make for hard feeling all around. However, since there will presuma- bly be some improvements made in the town while I am still here, I should like to suggest one or two which are not incorporated in the report-or at least, not so far as I have read (the first four paragraphs). I N the first place, there is that hole in the pavement on Forty-fourth Street just west of Fifth Avenue. I have, up to the present writing, smashed three silk hats on the tops of three separate taxi-cabs going over that hole. On other occasions, when not protected by a silk hat, I have merely hurt my head very badly. For the first two or three years of jouncing over it the only ill effect that I noticed was a stiff neck, necessi tating carrying my head forward as if I were sneaking up on someone. But during the past year this constant banging up against the ceilings of taxis just before reaching Fifth Avenue has be gun to tell on my men tal processes. I find that I forget addresses and names and sometimes I even forget what I am in the taxi-cab at all for. At such times I have to stop the cab at the i\. ve- nue, get out, and go back to look up my date-book. And, as I never put dates down in my date-book, I am no better off than I would have been if I . . }j f " ' . : ' f ;--:: .: o - : _: 17 : -', --- , :: II, :. ' ..'__.' .. _ . " ;:.'c::, ,." , " . ......'/ ;" , : < "w^'=?^t,; .. i '" q':":i :::: } t:"'::,:,::::,:::: ,:f ,.,... :..' .:1 .. (, I wonder what 11 good for sunburn, Bill?J' .........:.........:-:: .,;...........--:...-.-^ O ..sOG-l.O w JUNE 2, " I' 2. , had stayed in the cab-except that I don't hit my head in going over the hole In the pavement on Forty-fourth Street east of Fifth A venue. Before anything is done about getting fif- teen million more people into New York I would respe'ttfully suggest that they get those two holes filled . In. ANOTHER thing that this so-called "committee" had better see to before it starts any "circumferential " " d " I d " " routes or ra Ia roa s IS to put more rubbish-cans on street corners. I am by nature a very neat man. Those people who have been privileged to see my desk have marvelled at the absence of papers on it (partly due to the fact that I do no work, but also because I hate to have things littered about). I usually get my mail on the way out in the morning and read it as I walk along the street. This method sometimes results in nasty accidents, such as being run down by trucks and bumping into people coming in the opposite direction, but, as my mail is small, the danger is soon over. I used to carry along in my hand the en velopes and circulars which I did not want to save, looking for a receptacle in which to throw them. I couldn't bear to toss them out in to the street and make this city of ours all untidy. But I soon found that there were no receptacles. 0 n each street corner there are mail-boxes (unless you are looking for a mail-box, and then it is a police-box) but no rubbish-cans. I have carried handfuls of crumpled-up envelopes and circulars for ten blocks without finding any place to throw them, finally giving in and dropping them surreptitiously in the gutter, ex- pecting every minute to be spoken to by Commissioner V\Thalen and made to go and pick them up again and put them in the waste-basket. I HAVE tried to avoid this embar- rassing predicament by reading my mail in taxi-cabs, but then there arises the same problem of what to do with the envelopes and circulars You can't drop them on the floor of the cab, not with any fairness to the driver, whu probably wants to keep his cab neat. You can tuck them down in back of the cushions, but that also is rather a mean trick, for they pop out sooner or later and make the place look a mess. The only thing left to do is drop them out at the cab-window one by one, and there you are again, littering up the